"You have been kind to me." She did not answer. She could not. He stopped walking, and she stopped with him.
He turned to face her under the moon. "Miss Ashcombe—Vivienne—I must tell you something. I would rather tell you here, where no one can hear us, than in a room where I must be a duke."
"Then tell me."
"I have been promised, in a manner of speaking, to Miss Halverton. Not formally, not by contract, but by the sort of expectation that is nearly as binding as a contract. My father made the arrangement before he died. Her father was his oldest friend, and her mother has reminded me of it since the day I inherited."
Vivienne's throat closed. She looked toward the garden wall, where the ivy moved in a small breath of wind.
"I do not love her," he said. "I never have. I do not think she loves me. She loves the idea of the title, and her mother loves the security of it. If I marry her, no one will be surprised and no one will be hurt—not truly. If I do not, there will be a scandal that will touch my mother and, in time, my niece."
"Then you must marry her," Vivienne said. She was surprised by the steadiness of her voice.
"That was what I thought until last week."
She did not look at him. "Do not, please, Your Grace."
"I have not yet said anything." "You are going to." "Yes."
A long silence passed. She could hear him breathing and could hear her own heart. "Then say it," she said. "Let it be done."
He was quiet for a moment. "I do not know what to do with what I feel. I have not felt it before. I am not a young man, and I do not have the excuse of youth. I saw you kneeling in the rose walk with my niece and a wet bee, and something in me that I did not know was locked opened. I have been reaching for it ever since."